Born Ready
by naybaybay
Summary: AU for 7x03 "Clear and Present Danger" - spoilers if you haven't seen the episode. One shot. Complete.


**So, I live in Narnia (AKA, New Zealand), which means I don't get to see the Castle episodes until later. You may have seen the latest episode by the time you read this though, in which case, this is probably all redundant rubbish. But anyway, it's just a bit of fluff, so whether you've seen the episode or not, you may find you still enjoy it. I enjoyed writing it, anyway :) **

**Thanks for reading, and just so you know, I'm not against reviews! **

**Peace and love, **

**Renee. **

**...**

Castle and Beckett sat on Castle's lounge suite, both engrossed in their tablets. The Detective glanced up from her e-book intermittently, her eyes flicking over the fine specimen her fiancé was.

Similarly, Castle lowered his own tab, looking over his lady, slowly convincing himself to say something to her. Hadn't they spent enough time in solitude over the past few months? They really should be doing something together. God, why was it so hard to start a conversation with the woman you were going to marry?

Thankfully, she relieved him from the task of finding an opener.

"You wanna do something tonight?"

He dropped his screen fast. "Sure, if you want."

She shrugged, far more dismissively than she really meant. "Sure."

"Like what?" He asked her, ideas already at the forefront of his mind.

She narrowed her eyes, being coy and pretending to think. "We could um… go watch a movie."

"Yeah, yeah if you want to", he answered, his tone a little too high to be convincing.

She shook her head quickly. "Well not if you don't want to."

"If you want to, I want to", he said, again, quite unconvincingly.

"You know what, we've watched a lot of movies in the last couple of days", she glanced down at her knees.

"Yeah", he agreed, all too readily.

"So…maybe we could…", she blew a puff of air through her lips. "You know, if you wanted…", she left the sentence hanging, trusting in their connection that he would pick up on what she meant.

Castle raised himself up onto his elbow. "If I wanted to what?"

"Well maybe we could try something else tonight", the end of her words bounced off her tongue, a grin crawling onto her beautiful face, her bottom lip disappearing behind her teeth.

Castle righted himself on the couch again, still playing dumb, but also not daring to hope for too much. "Something else, as in…?"

"Well yeah, I mean we haven't, since…", her eyes were narrowed, trying not to sound insensitive or needy.

"Yeah, well given everything that's happened, I thought you just, you weren't…" the word hung in the air, he didn't want to be insensitive or sound stupid either.

Beckett leaned forward, trying to prompt him psychically.

"Ready", he finished finally.

Beckett practically leapt forward in her seat. "I thought that _you_ weren't ready", she set her tablet down on the couch next to her, lest he decide to take her right then and there.

Castle gaped, his eyes wide in his effort to convince her of his absolute readiness.

"I'm ready…I-I'm so ready", his face practically burst with the pressure of his convincing her.

"I'm ready too", Beckett pointed to herself. "I'm _really_ ready." She moved onto her knees, proving to him just how much she meant it.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Castle asked her promptly.

Not a second later, the two of them went to stand up, preparing to bolt to the bedroom.

As if fate would have it though, the phone rang, leaving them staring dumbly and disappointedly at each other…

THREE MONTHS EARLIER

"It's almost here, you ready?" She asked him, her body listing slightly to the side, more relaxed than she had been in years.

With sincerity lacing his voice, he answered her. "I have never been more ready. You?"

She smiled a warm, carefree smile at her soon-to-be husband. "I can't wait."

Stepping forward, toward each other, they embraced, kissing one another languidly and lovingly.

"Castle", she murmured into his mouth, and he pulled back a little to hear her.

"I'm ready to move forward with our life together. I've spent so long just battling through, trying to put this thing to bed, and now that I've achieved that…" She paused, smiling to herself. "Now that we've achieved that together, I want to start achieving more. I finally feel free enough to start making plans with you, to start making…a family with you."

He blinked, considering her carefully before speaking. "Kate, are you saying you want to…"

The detective inhaled shakily, then nodded, a smile creeping to her face. "I want us to have a baby."

"Are you sure?" He asked her, his face hopelessly alight with joy.

"The only thing I'm surer of is how much I love you." She took his hands in hers, pulling him backwards through her apartment. "I want you to be a Father to my child." She moved him into her bedroom, already helping him to remove his clothing. "Let's make a baby, Rick."

…

The two months they had been apart had been stressful, and Beckett had almost collapsed when she'd realised she was more than four weeks late for her period. She took a test - gracefully, it was negative. There was no way in hell she could have done this without him.

When he came back, the thought of moving forward and having a child was far from their minds. They needed to move forward with their own relationship, to rebuild things for themselves, setting a foundation for their future together, before including another person in that mix.

A month after he returned to her however, things had become more settled. He was back to normal, and she was learning to accept all that had happened during his absence, although she didn't really know what that was, but she was accepting of the fact that he had indeed tried his damnedest to get back to her. They had been through so much together, and this would not break them, in fact, he was determined for it to only strengthen their love.

THREE DAYS LATER

Castle and Beckett lay in bed together, too hot for blankets. "So now that the case is done, and all that other stuff is behind is, did you want to…" Castle glanced over at his fiancé, his eyes raking hotly over her body.

"Are you sure?"

"You already asked me that before, remember?" She reminded him, carding her fingers through his hair.

"A lot has happened since then."

She agreed with a nod. "Castle, look. We are going to get married next month, right? We've decided that."

He nodded silently.

"We're going to get back to where we were before all this happened. And the only way we're going to do that is if we do it together." She shifted in the bed, smiling shyly at him. "And maybe this will give us something of an incentive, I imagine having a little one around probably forces people to communicate well, and that might be what we need right now."

"I guess it would be nice for people to have something different to talk to us about, other than…the other thing."

"And besides, I am on a little bit of a ticking clock, you know", Beckett informed him, chuckling at herself.

He raised his eyes to hers, smiling shyly. "So we're doing this? We're going to make a baby?"

She bit her lip. "We're going to try."

"I love you so much", he told her wholeheartedly.

"I love you too, babe", she replied, lowering herself to the mattress before him.

He followed her down, ready to write a new chapter of their story together.


End file.
